


Binding The Light

by SenLinYu



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Dark Kylo Ren, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Manipulation, Manipulative Relationship, Mind Manipulation, Obsessive Behavior, Obsessive Kylo Ren, One Shot, One-Sided Attraction, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Short One Shot, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-19
Updated: 2018-03-19
Packaged: 2019-04-04 18:39:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14026302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SenLinYu/pseuds/SenLinYu
Summary: Following the destruction of Starkiller, Kylo Ren obsesses over what he wants.





	Binding The Light

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story I wrote shortly after seeing the Force Awakens and then forgot about. I initially imagined it would end up being a multi-chapter but couldn’t decide where I wanted to go with it. So I decided to leave it as an open ended one shot.

The Force ripples around her, through her. It’s unlike anything he’s ever seen before. Not the flow of the jedi or the pure power of the sith; it’s raw and untamed, pulsing, waiting to be guided.

He’s never wanted anything so much before.

The power feels like his, but without the rage.

It feeds off his power, mirroring him in a way that would make him indignant if he weren’t so damn impressed. Untrained mind reading. Mind control, which she somehow mastered by herself. And summoning his grandfather’s saber. Her techniques echo his own.

He replays their duel endlessly in his mind. There’s nothing else to do, strapped down, drugged to near unconsciousness while medic droids hover around. He’s vaguely aware that his left hip feels ice cold, the bowcaster had shattered enough bone to necessitate a metal replacement.

Ordinarily he’d burn with impatience over being held so long in a med bay, but Snoke does not generally concern himself with his apprentice’s well-being; Darth Vader served in pieces, more metal than man under Darth Sidious’ command. If Snoke thought a full recovery was necessary, Kylo imagined his next mission was likely a suicide one.

But he longs to be up. Whatever he must do next he wants it done and out of the way. He will raze the Resistance and the galaxies next if need be to prove himself to Snoke, he’s given everything now, and now he knows what he wants in return. The girl.

He wants her.

It blinds him how much the thought overwhelms him.

She is Light, and like a moth he feels drawn in even as he feels himself dying from it. She consumes him beyond a mental obsession. His whole body feels wound taut like the strings of an instrument, attuned to her.

He thinks he can almost feel her, as if he could reach out with the Force and find her and everything would stop burning. He wants to, but--

The excess of his feelings hit him so suddenly he vomits, nauseated by how she’s derailed him.

The whole med bay swims in his vision and a medic droid rolls over beeping in low soothing tones. He flings it across the room with the twitch of his wrist that he can manage through his restraints. Immediately more droids approach, but now he can feel the dosage of drugs being upped before they get too near.

Everything slips away.

The next time he awakens he’s in new quarters, alone. He sits up to survey his body, fully conscious for the first time since Starkiller was destroyed. The droids were thorough but he bears three new scars, two from the girl and one from Chewbacca.

His face looks harsher now, the boyish features he hated hidden behind a burn that crudely bisects his face. But the scar he cherishes is the twisted knot of scar tissue that covers his left hip. He has killed his father and set his path toward darkness in stone. The scar will act as a lifelong reminder of that moment.

There is no Light in him left to turn back to. It twinges faintly with every step and that fact makes him smile savagely.

He looks around the room. He isn’t sure what planet or base they’ve come to and he wants to be informed before he steps out. Information is power and he has been unconscious too long to be willing to hand any further leverage to Hux.

But the room is bare and nondescript. He wonders if Hux chose it specifically for that reason. His uniform is folded on a shelf. He pulls it on and prepares to heads out when he physically knocked over by a thought being shoved into his head.

_Appear before me now, Kylo Ren._

His head swims and his vision blurs as he pushes himself up. His head feels like it might split from the unexpected force of the mental invasion. He knows where he is now. Hux has brought him to Snoke.

The Supreme Ruler had masked his presence from Kylo until that moment. But now that he has revealed himself, Kylo can feel him as though a heavy cloak had been suddenly dropped over the room.

He’s never been so close to Snoke before. The Supreme Leader’s reach to him through the Force had spanned galaxies, but now that he feels the dark power radiating from so close, it’s suffocating.

Kylo’s heart pounds with anticipation as he hurries out. Being in Snoke’s physical presence at last means his master has found him worthy to complete his training.

He needs no further instruction or directions. He follows the feeling of power; like a black hole it pulls him in.

\-----------------------------------------------

He stands silently before the Supreme Ruler, head bowed, waiting to be acknowledged. Snoke surveys him silently for several minutes before finally speaking.

“You lost the scavenger I commanded you to bring me.”

It is a casual observation but Kylo writhes internally. He had hoped that particular subject would not be the first thing Snoke would saw fit to discuss.

“Forgive me, my lord, I failed you.”

“She defeated you, untrained, with your grandfather’s saber.”

“Yes, my lord.” Kylo ground out. His emotions twist inside.

Her face, illuminated by the light of the sabers, haunts him and he relives his desperation, begging her to let him train her. She was so vulnerable to the Dark Side in that moment, he could feel her rage and sorrow overflowing, she had been so close to being swallowed by it... but somehow she’d held it back. And it consumes him that she did.

He wants to drag her down into his darkness…

“She consumes you now.” Snoke observes, jerking him from his reverie.

“No!” He retorts, too quickly. He tries to explain himself. “Her power, its potential is unlike anything I’ve ever witnessed in someone untrained. She would be valuable to us if we could turn her, and if we don’t,” His lip curls into a snarl at the thought, “I don’t doubt the Resistance will send her to Skywalker for training.”

“But that does not explain your reluctance to harm her.” Snoke observes cooly, and Kylo feels the blood chill in his veins. “Surely, even wounded, the Master of the Knights of Ren is not so weak as to be unable to land a single blow on a untrained scavenger, regardless of her strength in the Force.”

Kylo is silent, he has no excuse to offer.

“I fai-” He starts, but Snoke interrupts him.

“I have seen inside your mind Kylo Ren, the girl was able, but if you had wished it you could have left her in the snow beside the stormtrooper.”

“I--”

“I was mistaken in my assessment of you.”

At Snoke’s words Kylo feels as if the ground had dropped from beneath him. He braces himself, for pain or death, he isn’t sure. Probably both, very slowly.

But Snoke continues, “It was not compassion I sensed, the girl stirs desire in you.”

Kylo hesitates, suddenly uncertain of whether or not he is going to die.

“It is just momentary weakness, my lord. It does not matter, I know that it is nothing. I will overcome it,” his throat feels twisted as he forces the next words out, “or kill her as I did my father.”

“No.” Snoke speaks with surprising sharpness. “You will obtain her and bring her before me as I commanded.”

“My lord?” Kylo questions hesitantly, feeling a disgusting, creeping sense of hopefulness stealing over him. If he were not standing before the Supreme Leader he would punch the wall in order the drive away the offensive emotion.

“You have taken too long in earning the right to complete your training with me, and in doing so you have clung to jedi teaching. Passion is what creates and drives life itself to continue. While the jedi would have their power die with each generation and thus stagnate in their founding, it is the sith that cultivate their power and look to the future. Do you not know that Darth Vader’s own birth into the Dark Side was born from his passion for his wife? Or did your parents keep that from you as well?”

Silence hung over the room as Kylo Ren absorbed the revelation.

“We will complete your training and when it is done you will obtain the girl. And if she will accept your training and join us, so be it. And if she does not, she will still be yours to do with as you wish.”

“Yes, my lord.” Kylo nearly stammered, his chest pounding.

“Now go. I have other matters to attend to now. We will begin your training tomorrow.”

\----------------------------------------

Snoke watches Kylo Ren’s retreating figure with cold eyes. The boy was blind to his own Light, just as his mother and uncle had been.

It was remarkable how fear could twist the young man into such an embodiment of anger and hate. It had been easy tapping into Leia Organa’s fear of her son’s potential darkness; her abilities in the Force were powerful but utterly untrained. She had never realized Snoke had manipulated her perception.

Luke Skywalker had been more challenging, it had required greater nuance but Skywalker had his own reservations regarding the dark potential in his blood. But swaying Luke had hardly been necessary at all.

Kylo’s perception of his mother’s fear poisoned him. Even as he acknowledged the call of the Light, he lost his ability to discern it in himself. That was why Snoke had no desire to make Kylo Ren kill his mother as he had compelled him to kill Han Solo. Solo could detect neither Dark or Light in his son Ben and that blindness had made him a siren of Light for Kylo Ren. Leia Organa, on the other hand, convinced Kylo of his darkness by her determination to save him from it.

Kylo Ren’s abilities in both Light and Dark were what made him useful; he could tap into abilities that sith lacked, but only as long as he overcame the temptation of the Light. That was why Snoke had decided to grant him the girl.

Kylo Ren had felt her power even before Snoke had. Initially Snoke had thought that the boy was swayed by compassion, but during the duel between Snoke had suddenly discerned her power. She and Kylo Ren resonated in their force wavelength, it was unlike anything Snoke had ever encountered before, and he had lived long.

Her power leaned Light, and even when consumed by emotion he was surprised that she resisted the pull toward darkness. But it did not matter if she leaned Light, Kylo Ren would drag her down with his obsession. Their resonance would make fighting against it like fighting against a feedback loop; they would either come together or the girl would kill Kylo Ren.

And in that case, her guilt would suck her into the dark side and Snoke’s grasp.

He had little concern that she could draw Kylo to the Light. Kylo Ren’s desire for her was antithetical to the code of the jedi; he burned for the girl like a dragon lusted for treasure. He would hoard her away and his desire to keep her would drive him much further in his pursuit of power than his idolization of Darth Vader had.

After all, the girl would likely became important to the Resistance over the course of Kylo Ren’s remaining training, which would mean that many extensive rescue attempts would be made to reclaim her once she was captured. Any shreds of hesitation Kylo Ren might have in wiping out the remaining Resistance would quickly vanish if they tried to take his prize from him.

A rare smile ghosts over Snoke’s lips.


End file.
